Social media experiment showcasing the lives and personalities of those in ultimate. This week:
May 21, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Next thread... (and coming up on the end of my being_ulti time since this weekend will be focused on new-house projects) "Even coaches with many championships sometimes need confidence reminders".
It doesn't take a long-time coaching career to know that players play best when they have confidence. There are 3 parts to this, and coaches are responsible for making sure they are all present: confidence in teammates, in strategy, and in themselves.
May 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Another quick thread to start the day - this one on team size. In a perfect world I think a team has ~21 players. All of them contribute in big games, and the rotations are tight to build good chemistry. Twist: Space Heater ignores this advice and rosters the max this year
Team sizes used to be smaller, I recall DoG took 24 players one year and this was a "huge" team size. Then one day the USAU made a rule that teams can only have 27 players and all of a sudden it seemed like all teams thought "we NEED 27 players!" and rosters ballooned.
May 21, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Ok - back to a coachy thread. This is about making up your lines. There is some thinking that having swiss-army lines are the best - lines that can play O or D, and flex into different strategies. I see the attractiveness of this, but it hasn't really worked well when I tried.
I prefer lines that maximize a certain power. Usually a team has a few players with super-powers or a 'theme' as to what the team is good at. Big throwers / small&quick / intelligent vets - all of these can be maximized on lines, with complimentary players and strategy.
May 20, 2021 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Jumping from the 'whistle' subject to something similar... this thread is titled "Refzervers are good, and could be even better"... also: "Its time to poke the ultimate twitter hornets nest..."
Since you asked - yes, I think I'm very clever by combining 'ref' and 'observer'.
As covered earlier, I am old. That means I know what it was like to play without refzervers. The DoG/NY on-field relationship could get *bad* . Sure, I'm on the side that would blame it all on Arnold... but Boston's side picked fights often, too
May 20, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
As it has through my whole career, work will be interfering with my desire to concentrate on frisbee today. So, only a very brief thread to start the morning on a c̵r̵i̵t̵i̵c̵a̵l̵ trivial subject: "Normalize whistles"
I know ultimate has a 'ref' allergy - and while I have a lot to say about the benefits of refs (I mean, observers) - I'll stick to this minor point: whistles are really handy. Ultimate should dissociate them from any 'refs' prejudice and use them more.
May 19, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Alright, time to talk a bit about (an elephant in the room)... Team USA selection experience. Picks for Team USA are very challenging. You might think this is like being in a candy store. Not really; it is always the most difficult and stressful part of the Team USA process.
The reason it is stressful isn't because you might end up with a lackluster team; the quality of the second-string Team USA is probably just *barely* (if at all) below the first string. Its because the margins are tiny and yet you still want to make the best possible selections.
May 19, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Second reply to "what were your worst Losses?"... You might think that I'd jump to the loss to DW in the finals, or the innumerable losses to Molly Brown in quarters. But as heartbreaking as those losses were, our team(s) played really well and you can't be really down for long
We (Scandal) lost on dgp to Molly Brown in 2015, after the famous exodus of players from the championship roster. It was heartbreaking but also one of the most rewarding seasons I coached. The metric of a season is not in the hardware at the end, but whether it overachieved.
May 19, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
First thread today, taken from reader request: Taking Losses. I'm not sure why I got this request - perhaps this reader enjoys reveling in my low points - but I'Il handle it with two parts. This is the first... or "how I got out-coached in two ways by @mauromoore".
Team USA comes out for game1 of the World Games in Poland and gets shocked by Team Colombia, 13-12 (giving up two breaks to lose). The most obvious way we got out-coached is how well prepared MM's team was for our offense, esp the places they poached and their gender matchup flex
May 18, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
A quickie thread because I'm busy today and dont have time for something longer... Titled: "Enjoyment and why you need it". Teams benefit from ethos(es?) - like Revolver's IHD - and imo a most important team ethic is "E"
I didn't have a hand in founding the Revolver ethos of Intensity/Humility/Discipline, but I really resonated with it. Certainly it was what worked well with the players that were forming Revolver, and its clearly held up well after 15 years of Revolver iterations.
May 18, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Next thread for today: "The benefits of mixed teams like Space Heater, especially as it relates to @aevangelides". Alternate title: "the mixed ultimate unicorn". Final note: this thread may contain inconsistencies, but that's because the author is human and complicated
Ah - mixed. You could say I have mixed feelings (zing). As a long time elite(ist) player and coach in the single-gender divisions, in the past I've looked at mixed as the JV division. Great players play in it of course, but the characterization was fair for the div in general
May 18, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Next thread title: "The magic of offense". Or... "as much as I think coaching matters, you still need a magic bean to make it work." Or... "Jam, 2008. WTF?!?"
Elite frisbee offense is a fickle mistress. You can assemble great players and great strategy, but something can still be missing. The offense has to 'click' with each other. This can happen quickly - some teams settled into offenses within the first few weeks of the season...
May 18, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Good morning. With regards to looking across a bracket and picking a matchup (ahem... Clippers), I say dont do it. I've had the opportunity to do this many times and have never regretted getting wins, regardless of matchup consequence.
To get wins is the right mode for the team, and to look ahead is the wrong focus. Plus, some of the greatest wins come from these opportunities. We could have tanked but coaching Cal vs Oregon, pre-quarters in 2010 is one of the top 5 game moments of my life (incl championships)
May 17, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Final thread for today title: "mistakes were made". Young people, please listen to my old-person porch rants (@asigal22), this thread is for your own good.
Once upon a time, I was really good (it was more like a blink-of-an-eye). I had made DoG (a phone call that will stay in my top moments of life) and I was assigned to guard the best players of the day (Hollywood, Damien, MG). They were better than me, but not by a mile.
May 17, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Ok, new thread... this one more coach-oriented. Working title: practice intensity. Sub-title: an ode to Sam Kanner
Most teams lately have (correctly) embraced team bonding as a critical competitive advantage. However, what can be lost is practice intensity. This is an integral part of a championship season. Practice intensity is not measured in amount-of-sweat. It is emotional and mental.
May 17, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Subject of today: culture. One reason for doing this twitter project is I wanted to provide my perspective on frisbee's arc, most importantly culture. TLDR: elite ultimate is real different now, and I hope we keep some of what was there before.
I started really playing in '92-ish. This means my roots in ultimate are still back in the 'old times' - which were very different from the 'now times'. The changes since then are incredible. Besides legitimacy and the game's 'trimmings' the quality of play is +🔥
Feb 11, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
Gonna talk about patriarchy but I want to cite my sources: men, you should read The Will to Change by bell hooks
This is her exact definition of patriarchy. I started moving toward saying "patriarchal" over "sexist" bc I think it describes the behaviors better (and bc bell hooks convinced me to see it that way)
Jan 2, 2021 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
HOT TAKE = The business of sports in America perpetuates white supremacy and reinforces systemic racism in our society.
(and the sport of ultimate is broadly trying to commercialize itself into this same oppressive system)
Karl Marx suggested that "religion is the opium of the people." In an increasingly secularized society, this function is performed by sports entertainment.
Jan 1, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
(A THREAD REGARDING MY GENERAL PERSPECTIVES TOWARD HUMANITY)
Before going into HOT TAKES, I thought it might be helpful to add some flavor context on my assumptions for human behavior and how they inform my work as a disc org ED and my thinking about ultimate's future.
I'm an instinctively CYNICAL person. My default setting is to assume that humans act from their own self-interest EVEN when their actions contribute to the greater good. When interacting with others, I'm always seeking to detect or understand their underlying motives.
Jan 1, 2021 • 16 tweets • 10 min read
The "How Did I Survive 2020?" FAKE ANSWERS ONLY tweet contest is COMPLETE!
My COVID thread was exhausting but we're NOT DONE YET.
Return-to-play questions aren't SOLELY focused on community health & the virus. Orgs are challenged to address how return-to-play plans will accommodate marginalized groups. There's serious risk of backsliding on DEI work.
To their credit, USAU addressed this in their Return-To-Play guidance:
"Barriers that prevent people
marginalized by society...from returning to play equitably are likely to manifest as playing opportunities are
reintroduced and are subject to special...requirements."
Dec 31, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
And here we are. The LAST DAY of 2020!
I've thought a lot over how best to use my Being Ulti powers to close out this shitstorm of a year. What game or gimmick would be cheeky & fun but give folks a chance to blow off some steam without getting TOO heavy? Here's my idea!
The "How Did I Survive 2020?" FAKE ANSWERS ONLY tweet contest!
Submit your FAKE ANSWER for how YOU survived 2020 using the linked form. I'll rank and tweet out my favorite submissions TONIGHT in a fast & furious twitter storm to end the year.
